And this is to say nothing of the ministry I’ve benefited from via your rank-and-file clergy. One of my college chaplains is a Franciscan sister. One of my most formative seminary Bible professors is a Dominican priest.
So I’m a fan. A big fan, even.
Hopefully my emotional and academic attachment to the Catholic Church lends me just enough credibility to openly ask this on the day that the Vatican is now meeting with leaders from the Leadership Conference of Women Religious…
What the @#$%&!* happened?
I’m not even talking about the pedophilia scandal at the moment—my feelings on it are fairly well-formed.
But what happened to you men of power not feeling threatened by the theologies of articulate, compassionate, intelligent women religious here in the States?
Maybe it is because my childhood pastor is female, or that I was taught religion by women in both college and seminary, or that I belong to a denomination headed by a female pastor, or that I simply have to conclude the Apostle Paul was full of it when he wrote in 1 Corinthians that women should stay silent in churches after effusively praising the deaconess Phoebe in Romans 16 but…
What could it possibly be that has alarmed you so about a highly-regarded woman religious theologian saying that possibly some aspects of human sexuality aren’t quite as black-and-white as they first appear?
What could it possibly be that has worried you so much about the LCWR that you’re putting cleaning your own house on the back burner so that my fellow Washington native Archbishop Peter Sartain can give them the third degree instead?
What could it possibly be that you take such a consistent pro-life approach in ethical debates, but are balking at covering contraception for women when contraception demonstrably reduces the number of abortions in countries with consistent birth rates?
Are you fearful of your actions stifling academic and theological creativity here in the States?
Are you concerned about how your church looks when you give Bernard Cardinal Law, architect of the Boston pedophile priest cover-up, an enviable position in Rome, but tolerate no doctrinal variance from the people who are actually on the streets, doing ministry day-in and day-out?
I’m genuinely wondering here, because I remember what the German Catholic theologian Hans Kung saidabout Pope Benedict XVI in 2009—that Benedict is enclosed in the Vatican and so sees only the Vatican world. And I feel like I’m beginning to understand what Professor Kung is saying.
I mean, here in the non-Vatican world, I give thanks every day that I belong to a church where I do not have to fear the possibility of my regional minister (my equivalent of a bishop) paying me a visit to tell me that I have committed heresy and that I need to be reined in by a bunch of randos who call themselves the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Besides, what would we call such a body in the Disciples? The Congregation for the No Creed but Christ? That’s a gas.
A Protestant pastor who loves your church and desperately wants to believe in you
